Eight years ago my mother died … and I didn't mourn her like I felt a daughter is supposed to be able to mourn a mother.

We never saw eye to eye. Not even when I was a little girl. She always made aware of how I was far from fulfilling her expectations. I realized, as the years followed me into young womanhood that I never would be able to. Her expectations w for me to live a life she herself wanted …

When she died I did lose something I was clinging on to though: chances of things getting better.

And then, a few days ago I could finally see that my memories of her weren’t all bad memories.

My youngest son got his driving license. And midst being happy for him I spontaneously wanted to call his gran and tell her about it, knowing how happy she would have been for him. There and then I could, finally, see that if she'd been alive we would still have had the shared love of these boys!

And the sense of loss turned in to a calm feeling that I can't describe. Maybe my loss has now matured and become … I don't know … a lesson learned?